The field of the invention relates to sporting goods and, in particular, to sporting goods when a players hands grip an element having a circular cross section, such as a baseball bat or golf club.
A baseball bat has a barrel, a shaft, and a knob. The barrel is the portion of the bat that contacts the ball when the payer hits the ball. The shaft is the portion of the bat that is gripped by the player and the knob is a bulbous terminus to the shaft.
The knob provides the batter with a location to position his hands, and it also provides support for his grip.
In the game of baseball, a batter's success depends upon control of the bat and bat speed. One method of increasing the bat speed and improving bat control is to reposition the user's hands higher on the shaft of the bat. This process is known as choking up.
When children are learning how to bat, their coaches frequently instruct them to choke up on the bat. When the child chokes up, he no longer has the knob as a guide to position his hands and provide support for his grip. Not surprisingly, the child frequently moves his hands back down to rest on the knob. Also, not surprisingly, the next time he bats he may not recall where he placed his hands the last time he choked up, and may choke up to a different position, or not at all.
There is, currently, a device on the market by Easton-Bell Sports that comprises a thick rubber loop that fits around the bat shaft that produces a “Bat Choke”, however, that product has a disadvantage in that it must be stretched over the knob of the bat. Because the rubber loop is thick it requires considerable force to stretch the device to allow the rubber loop to pass by the knob in installing the rubber loop on the shaft of the bat. That product also has an additional disadvantage in that it is not adjustably positionable along the shalt of the bat and it does not fit different bat shaft diameters.
Accordingly, there is a need for a better device and a method to assist baseball players to choke up on a bat that enables a player to position his hands repeatedly at the same position, to provide support for the players grip at a choked up position, to provide a simulation of a bat knob at an adjustable position on the bat shaft and to provide a device that will fit many different shaft diameters.